Business call centers have traditionally employed personnel (live agents) to support customer phone calls. Over time, computerized response systems have replaced the live agents in many areas, primarily to reduce cost. Computerized response systems may be simple or complex. A simple computerized response system is an automated attendant, which relies on dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signaling to transfer callers to an extension without the intervention of an operator/receptionist. For example, an automated attendant may state “For sales, press 1, for service, press 2,” and the automated attendant directs the customer's call based on which button the customer depresses on the customer's phone.
A slightly more sophisticated computerized response system is an interactive voice response (IVR) system. IVR systems allow callers to interact with a company's host system via a telephone keypad or by speech recognition. An IVR system captures a user's utterances (uninterrupted speech) and processes the speech accordingly. While capturing the user's utterances, the IVR system determine a user's “final utterance” by detecting a pause in the user's speech. For example, the IVR system may state “please provide your account number” and the IVR system captures the user's response of “123456 . . . ” and detects the pause after “6.” As such, the IVR system concludes that the user's answer is “123456.”